Bill Reynolds: Belichick has risen to the challenge this season

FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH: Is this Bill Belichick’s best coaching year? Might just be. For the injuries keep coming, and here are the Pats at 10-3, right there where they always seem to be.

FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH:

Is this Bill Belichick’s best coaching year?

Might just be.

For the injuries keep coming, and here are the Pats at 10-3, right there where they always seem to be. It’s not always pretty, and NFL history tells us that you can’t keep overcoming poor starts and keep winning. But here it is in mid-December and here they are, and here is Belichick with one of his best coaching jobs in his storied career.

The great response in the Garden the other night to Doc Rivers’ return was well-deserved.

Any year that gives us “twerking,” “selfies,” and the “I’m Schmacked” tour probably can’t get out of here fast enough.

Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett are both playing on fumes in Brooklyn.

You know the sports world has gone full-goose looney with the news that Robinson Cano said that the Yankees disrespected him when they only offered him $170 million.

QUIZ OF THE WEEK: What state has produced the most NHL players? (Answer near the bottom of the column.)

LINE OF THE WEEK comes from Redskins coach Mike Shanahan in a recent media session on the benching of RG3: “What I’m trying to do is be as honest as I can, and I don’t normally do that.”

LINE OF THE WEEK II comes from Pierce on leaving the Celtics: “Kevin moved on. Doc moved on. Ray moved on. It is what it is.”

LINE OF THE WEEK III comes from a reporter named Jeff Passan on the best moment to come out of baseball’s Winter Meetings: “Two men tried to beat the crap out of each other, witnesses said, and one of them threatened to burn the other’s house down.”

LINE OF THE WEEK IV comes from Yankee manager Joe Girardi on Jacoby Ellsbury: “You are no longer a thorn in my side. You are a flower in our clubhouse.”

The movie “Homefront”? It’s not like any home I want to live in. Very violent. All too predictable. And ultimately not worth it.

The Friars are tied for 12{+t}{+h} in Hoop Scoop’s recruiting class of 2014. Seton Hall, Georgetown, and Xavier are the Big East schools ranked ahead of PC.

Look up the word “broken” in the dictionary and there’s a picture of the Knicks.

Right next to one of the Rhode Island economy, but that’s another story.

If there’s a worse college basketball program right now than Rutgers, it’s hiding.

He’s probably not going to win the Heisman, and who knows if his game translates to the NFL, but there’s no one who is more of a treat to watch in college football than “Johnny Football.”

There’s no truth to the rumor that Joe Torre belongs in the Hall of Fame simply for putting up with George Steinbrenner all those years.

Or that now that there is no Gronk, the Pats want Aaron Hernandez out on work release.

Or that the Yankees are so old, they’re starting to look like a softball team.

Or that that the darkened Bank of America building has become a metaphor for a tired downtown.

Running quarterbacks are a treat to watch, but they usually don’t win over the long haul in the NFL.

Remember when Red Auerbach coached alone? Now every NBA team has a flock of assistant coaches.

No sport keeps itself in the news all year long better than baseball.

“Out of the Furnace” is “The Deer Hunter” redux, a chilling look at small-town America when all the hope’s checked out.

There is no worse phrase in college basketball than “one and done.”

Yes, he’s a good player, but no one ever said they were going to a game to watch Ellsbury play.

You know it’s a wacky world in the NFL, Bunky, when the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars have won four out of their last five games.

And Barack Obama poses for a “selfie” with the Danish prime minister.

You had to see the Knicks lose at home to the Celtics last Sunday afternoon to believe it.

I’ve never really understood NHL fights, given that they’re not allowed in any other team sport, but if Shawn Thornton doesn’t get some form of suspension for wailing on Brooks Orpik, we really are through the looking glass here.

What’s up with Richie Incognito this weekend?

I always tried to keep up with popular music, but rap knocked me out of the game.

QUIZ ANSWER: Minnesota, followed by Massachusetts and Michigan.

The latest sign that the apocalypse is near: MTV says Miley Cyrus is the best artist of the year. Wow.

Former Patriot Tedy Bruschi said this week that knee injuries will become the new norm as players try to avoid helmet-to-helmet hits.

From 2000 to 2012, baseball salaries have increased 200 percent.

Jeff Green of the Celtics is a lot better than most people think.

Memo to general managers: give huge long-term deals to athletes in their 30s and you get what you deserve.

Kind of like electing the same people to office and expecting different results.